Loose leaf binder



Jan.` 9, 1968 Lou-SEv LEM1 BINDER Filled July 5:1., .19.67

' INVENTOR y @Ama .6. v/MQLLEQ ATTORNEY United states Patent o 3,362,412 LSE LEAF BFNDER Carl G. Moller, 155 E. 50th St., New York, NX. 10022 Filed Juiy 31, 1967, Ser. No. 657,193 1 Claim. (Cl. 129-1) ABSTRACT F THE DISCLGSURE pages.

This application is a continuation-in-part of copending application Ser. No. 513,423, tiled Dec. 13, 1965.

As conducive to an understanding of the invention, it is noted that where loose leaf binders utilize spring-urged metal ring loops that may be opened or closed for insertion or removal of perforated sheets of paper, the mechanism in addition to being relatively heavy and bulky, is also relatively expensive to fabricate. In addition, the size of the rigid rings cannot be adjusted so that if only a few sheets are to be accommodated in a binder having large rings, the binder is unnecessarily bulky.

Where a plastic retaining member of fixed size is provided to accommodate the sheets, then it is apparent that where only a few sheets are initially carried by the binder, the latter will be unnecessarily bulky. Furthermore, Where the plastic retaining member requires any complex manipulation for opening or closing, insertion and removal of the sheets would be relatively difficult.

It is accordingly among the objects of the invention to provide a loose leaf binder which may readily be fabricated at low cost from relatively inexpensive materials and may readily be adjusted by the user to accommodate varying amounts of sheets of perforated paper of conventional type within a relatively large range of thickness.

Another object is to provide a low cost retaining member which may readily be mounted on the cover member of a loose leaf binder and which may readily be adjusted with a relatively simple manipulation so that at all times one or more sheets of perforated paper will be securely retained in position, yet free to be turned to facilitate reading thereof and without any unnecessary bulkiness of the retaining members in excess of that required to accommodate the number of sheets carried by the binder.

According to the invention, these objects are accomplished by the arrangement and combination of elements hereinafter described and more particularly recited in the claims.

In the accompanying drawing in which are shown one or more of various possible embodiments of the several features of the invention,

FIG. l is a perspective view of a loose leaf binder according to one embodiment of the invention, showing the retaining members in open position to receive the perforated loose leaf pages;

FIG. 2 is a top plan view of the retaining member;

FIG. 3 is a longitudinal sectional view taken along line 3 3 of FIG. 2 showing the retaining member secured to a cover panel;

FIG. 4 is a transverse sectional view taken along line 4-4 of FIG. 3, and

3,362,412 Patented Jan. 9, 1968 FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 are fragmentary detail sectional views illustrating the operation of the retaining member.

Referring now to the drawings, as shown in FIG. l, the loose leaf binder illustratively comprises a rectangular sheet of relatively stiff cardboard or the like which has a plurality of fold lines 11 extending transversely across the length of the sheet along the center portion thereof to define front and back cover panels 12 and 13.

Secured to the inner surface of one of the cover panels, illustratively the back cover panel 13 adjacent the fold lines 11, are a plurality of retaining members 14.

In the illustrative embodiment shown, three retaining members 14 are provided, where the loose leaf binder is to be used in association with loose leaf sheets or pages 15 of the type shown, having three apertures 16 adjacent one of the side edges 17 thereof.

As shown in FIGS. l to 5, each retaining member 14, which preferably is molded from suitable plastic, has a body portion 18 substantially rectangular as shown with an elongated relatively narrow tongue 19 extending longitudinally therefrom.

The body portion 14 has an elongated rectangular opening therethrough bridged by an inverted substantially U-shaped strip 21 which is molded integrally with the retaining member 14. The bridging strip 21 defines openings 22, 23 on each side thereof respectively through which the tongue 19 may extend.

The opening 22 along each side thereof has ribs 24 which preferably are molded as continuations of the side walls 2S of the U-shaped bridging strip 21 and which serve to reinforce the body portion 18 at the region thereof between the bridging strip 21 and a retaining opening 26 adjacent the root end 27 of the tongue 19.

The bottom surface of the tongue 19 has a plurality of substantially saw tooth protuberances 28 formed therein extending from near the free end 29 of the tongue toward the root end 27 thereof, the function of which will be hereinafter described.

The body portion 18 of the retaining member 14 is secured to the cover member 13 by a suitable fastening member 31 such as a rivet, extending through the body portion 18 between the opening 22 and the root end 27 of the tongue 19. The retaining members 14 are positioned so that when initially fastened in place on the panel 13, the protuberance 28 will be directed downwardly as shown in FIG. 3.

In use of the loose leaf binder, above described, the plurality of perforated loose leaf pages 15 are positioned so that the tongue 19 of each of the retaining members 14 extends through the aligned openings 16 of a stack of loose leaf pages as shown in FIG. 1. Thereupon, the tongue 19 is reversely bent to form a loop 32, as shown in FIG. 4 and the free end 29 of the tongue 19 is moved through opening 22, then beneath the bridge 21 and out of opening 23 so that such free end Z9 will then extend over the rear end 33 of the body portion 18. When the tongue 19 is pulled to the right as shown in FIG. 4 to reduce the size of the loop 32 so that it is of just sufcient size to accommodate the stack of pages, one of the saw tooth protuberances 28a will engage the edge 21a of the bridge 21 releasably to lock the pages in position.

By reason of the fact that the body portion 18 is mounted to the cover panel as at 31 adjacent the root end 2'7 of the tongue 19, the free end 33 of the body portion 18 is free to move toward and away from the panel on which it is mounted.

As a result, in order to release the tongues for insertion or removal of sheets 15, it is merely necessary to move the end 33 of the body portion forwardly from the position shown in FIG. 4 to the position shown in FIG. 5, so that the body portion tends to form a curve as shown 'D n) in FIG. 5. By reason of the reinforcement provided by the parallel ribs 24, the region of the body portion between the mounting member 31 and the locking edge Zla of the bridge will remain in a relatively straight line. Thus, the outer edge 23a of opening 23 will move downwardly below the plane of locking edge 21a. As the smooth surface of tongue 19 rests on said edge 23a, since the thickness of the tongue 19 is considerably less than the clearance now provided between edges 21a and 23a, it is apparent that the tongue 19 can readily be moved through openings 23, 22 without engagement of the protuberance 28 by locking edge 21a.

As the retaining member above described can readily be fabricated by molding, it can be made in large quantities at relatively low cost. To assemble the retaining members to the cover panel of the binder merely requires a simple riveting or stapling operation, for example, which may be performed automatically. As a result, the expandable binder of the type above described can readily be fabricated at low cost and with a simple manipulation may readily be adjusted to accommodate a few pages or a large number of pages.

As many changes could be made in the above construction and many apparently widely different embodiments of this invention could be made without departing from the scope of the claim, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawing shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

Having thus described my invention, what l claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. A loose leaf binder comprising a pair of cover panels, a plurality of retaining members associated with one of said cover panels, each of said retaining members having a body portion and an elongated tongue having its root end integral with said body portion and extending longitudinally thereof, said tongue being adapted to extend through the juxtaposed openings in a stack of loose leaf pages, said body portion having means releasably to lock the tongue in xed position with respect thereto to define a loop to accommodate such stack of pages, said locking means comprising a pair of spaced aligned openings in said body portion longitudinally aligned with said tongue, one of said openings being adjacent the end of the body portion remote from the tongue, said tongue being adapted to extend through said openings beneath the region of the body portion between said openings, the region of the body portion between said openings being defined by an inverted U-shaped bridge integral with the body portion, a pair of parallel ribs formed respectively on opposed sides of the opening in the body portion adjacent the root end of the tongue to reinforce the associated region of the body portion, said tongue having a plurality of saw toothed protuberances on the surface thereof opposed to the surface of the body portion from which the bridge rises, at least one of said protuberance being adapted to engage the edge of said bridge associated with the opening adjacent the end of said body portion, releasably to lock said tongue in position and means securing said body portion to one of said cover panels between the root end of the tongue and the other of said openings and with said body portion normally lying flat on said one cover panel with said inverted U-shaped bridge extending upwardly from said one panel, the end of said body portion remote from the tongue being freely movable away from said panel, whereby when the free end of the body portion is moved forwardly it will tend to form a curve thus lifting the end of the bridge away from the engaging protuberance to release the latter so that the tongue may then readily be slid through the aligned openings for release thereof.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,054,585 9/1962 Roberts et al. 24--16 X 3,214,808 ll/l965 Litwin 24-16 3,257,694 6/1966 Litwin 24-16 3,236,242 2/1966 Galiley 129-1 JEROME SCHNALL, Primary Examiner. 

